Tag Archives: nba lockout

Why the hell do these things have to break at the wee-hour of the mornings? Like WTF, can’t a dude get some sleep? Oh well, I guess it’s part of the “job.” At the end of the day I don’t mind reporting this because THE NBA LOCKOUT IS FINALLY OVER.

“We’re optimistic that the [agreement] will hold and we’ll have ourselves an NBA season,” NBA commissioner David Stern said at a brief news conference held in New York.

Details (as we know of thus far):

Most likely a 49-51 split for players

Full Mid-Level exception for all non-tax-paying teams [four years starting at $5 million]

10% Maximum of escrow withholdings

Prevent high spending teams from competing in free agency market as much as they had

A harsher luxury tax

Terms will allow smaller market teams to be more competitive

Compromise on “repeater” tax

1% BRI that goes to a POOL for retired players

Match period on restricted free agents reduced from seven days to three

Union likely to re-form by the end of next week

For the agreement to take shape players will have to drop their antitrust suits from the courts (players will have to petition law suit to be dismissed), players will have to reclaim interest, and reform the union and have a majority vote of its 430+ players. Owners will also have to vote where a majority (at least 15 of 29 owner votes – NBA owns Hornets) in order to fully pass the agreement. SO IT SEEMS LIKE IT WILL END, BUT WE STILL NEED TO VOTE.

Right now they are aiming at a 66-game season, to begin ON Christmas day, with a triple header scheduled.

Boston Celtics at New York Knicks at 12:00 PM, Miami Heat at Dallas Mavericks at 2:30 PM and the nightcap–Chicago Bulls at LA Lakers 5:00 PM.

Commissioner David Stern has said on many times that the league would need approximately 30 days from an agreement to when games could actually be played – in order to play on Dec. 25. Well guess what, Dec 25th is 30 days from RIGHT NOW… You yanked us around the whole time you SOB’s.

Right now the word is there will be a week-10 days of free agency, followed by teams aiming to open training camps on December 9th. So take two weeks to write the agreement, then a week of free agency and finally a week of training camp and we’re off. Given that time period, that would be about 30 days, so everything SHOULD be in place for that Christmas day tip-off.

Many think that the agreement was reached after the players were seeking $6 billion dollars in damages in the courts if it was found that the lockout was illegal. Could David Stern have been shitting his pants and wanted to eat his chocolate cake in peace.

Well I can finally stop this whole NFL/NBA Lockout watch and just WATCH some real sports. I hated all this legal nonsense so lets play some ball.

Shocker the NBA Lockout is in bad shape. I could’ve done with out today’s version of Sammy Sosa, Chris Broussard telling us that. I mean when you have a bunch of idiots (Billie King and co.) leading a bunch of other idiots (LeBron James, Maurice Evans, Ron Artest, etc) what do you expect? All I know is it looks like another year with out a ring for the self proclaimed “King” a.k.a LeBron James.

So be patient everyone and enjoy the college basketball that ESPN will SHOVE down your throats like I will be doing to stuffing on Thanksgiving. Seriously…how about we just cancel all basketball until like March? Cool?

Wow..so the whitest black guy outside of Wayne Brady just got all gangster (in a white kid from the rich part of town, who thinks he’s gangster because he can afford Eminem’s new CD and buy really big baggy pants and big shirts, way) on NBA commissioner, David Stern.

Gumbel went the way of playing the “race card”saying the commissioner wants to be seen as a “modern plantation overseer” and “treating NBA men like they were his boys.” He says Stern is trying to show that he can keep “Hired hands in their place” and says Stern should be keen on being a solution, not part of the problem in the NBA.

Check out the video

I’m sorry I don’t buy it. Once you use the whole “plantation owner” thing, you immediate cloud everyone’s judgment and people fail to hear the main point. They instantly think race. I also don’t think David Stern is being a plantation owner in any way during this period either, Bryant. Stern– I think has been very aware of the NBA is African-American dominant. I think the dress code thing, that Gumbell mentioned was a way of Stern protecting the leagues image when viewed in the public eye. Gumbell obviously has it out for Stern. I get you’re angry Bryant, but relax. Don’t play the race card. It’s more greedy and egotistical people here making this whole situation shitty– then it is a race thing.

The two sides spent Sunday night and much of Monday negotiating system issues that had the league’s owners pushing for harsh taxes for big-spending teams, a lowering of the midlevel salary-cap exception and the narrowing of players’ “Larry Bird” exception rights. The biggest obstacle in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement has been the split of the league’s revenue, or basketball-related income (BRI), but Stern said two sides also have not been able to clear the “system hurdles” – primarily the structure of the league’s salary cap.

The owners want to reduce the annual midlevel exception for free agents from $5.8 million to $3 million with a maximum contract length of two years, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. The owners also want to limit the maximum length of contracts to four years for players re-signed by their own teams and three years for players joining new teams, sources said. The union didn’t want to go below five and four years. The current maximums are six years for players re-signed by their own teams and five for other players.

The owners also want to greatly penalize teams that exceed the salary cap, sources told Y! Sports, proposing that teams won’t be allowed to pay the luxury tax more than twice in five years. Tax-paying teams also could be restricted from using the Bird exception to re-sign their own players.

While Stern claims the owners are no longer seeking a hard salary cap, Players Association president Derek Fisher(notes) said the proposed penalties for tax-paying teams will essentially act the same as a hard cap on player salaries.

“It’s still as close as you can get, if not a hard cap,” Fisher said.

NBA owners have sought to reduce the players’ share of BRI from the 57 percent they received in the previous labor agreement. The players have proposed dropping to 53 percent while the owners’ last formal proposal wanted a reduction to 47 percent.

I personally don’t think both sides are putting in enough time to negotiate. I mean before Sunday they hadn’t met for like a week. REALLY? The fucking season is supposed to start in 3 weeks and you are going to meet for two out of 10 days. Now in comparison to the NFL, owners and NFLPA didn’t meet as much as they should have early on, but when it was nearing time for training camps to open: Jeff Saturday was sleeping in Robert Kraft’s bed. The NBA is run by a bunch of idiot owners, and comprised of players who are too consumed about being in McDonalds commercials and going to play in retarded streetball games where they are dropping like 100 points against idiots. Get the fuck off the streets and get into a negotiating room. Lets go.

LeBron James’ Twitter Timeline about his NBA Season Being Cancelled…

If you didn’t hear– the word on the street is L.A Lakers star Kobe Bryant will be packin’ his bags, stocking up on nutella and heading overseas to sell himself out play ball in the country he once lived…Italy. Claudio Sabatini the president of Virtus Bologna is optimistic Kobe Bryant will sign with the Italian club during the NBA lockout. Sabatini told The Associated Press on Friday that Bryant’s agent, Rob Pelinka, agreed to an arrangement for 35 to 40 days worth more than $3 million — for about 10 games.

“We’re very confident the deal can be completed,” Sabatini said. “We’re prepared to make a big investment.”

Yeah…I’d say that’s a friggin’ good deal, $3 million dollars for 10 games. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Hey….more power to you Kobe….get that cash. The deal is still not done and could hit a snag, but the numbers experts at ESPN say the deal is about “95% done” we shall see.

You can bet your ass the paisanos in Italy wont be happy to see some jerkoff american come to their country, take $3 million and leave after 10 games. As expected some no-name scrub player says he will get after Kobe….and he’ll do it HARD. (Giggity).

Apparently ex-USC Trojan Guard, Daniel Hackett, wants to finally get his name in the papers by getting at Kobe and his millions. He don’t take kindly to this shit.

“The only way to stop a player that good is with a hard foul and he knows that,” Hackett told the Associated Press. “I’ve got five fouls to commit and they’re going to be the hardest five fouls I’ve ever committed.”

“I really hope Kobe doesn’t lower himself to this level for economic and commercial motives,” Hackett said, according to the Gazzetta. “To me, it would be a big disappointment to see him here under these circumstances, and a loss of respect for a player who is too big to dirty his hands in this league.”

While Kobe is my man….I hope this dope Hackett does smack him in the mouth a few times….cause I’d LOVE to see Kobe go off for 200 pts a game against some NBA rejects and 5″6 ginzos….it’d be like playing NBA Jams vs a high school squad. Buona fortuna Kobe.

David is in a tough spot...Just like when the fatty has to pick between a #1 or #3...

It was just reported that the NBA has postponed its training camps, which are set to open Oct. 3rd, and canceled 43 preseason games from Oct. 9-Oct.15th. The talks in the NBA collective bargaining have gone as far as my blackout talks at 3:55am with blondes in the club, as the main issue is that the owners want a HARD CAP and the players do not.

A Hard Cap puts strict restrictions on how much a team can go over the cap, and a Soft Cap gives many exceptions that allow teams to go over the cap to sign players.

Now obviously the NBA players executive board headed by - union president Derek Fisher, vice presidents Keyon Dooling, Eton Thomas, Theo Ratliff, Maurice Evans, James Jones, Matt Bonner and Roger Mason Jr. — along with union director Hunter and attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Ron Klempner, would want a SOFT CAP allowing players the luxury to make more $$$ and play where they choice without limits.

And most owners (outside of NY, BOSTON, LA) would obviously want a HARD CAP so that their top players would have less flexibility to go sell out to play in other markets (*Cough LeBron is a bitch Cough*).

Kobe can take a number of deals: A one-year deal to two-month and one-month options, and even a per-game deal that would be about $739,640 per home game WTF? Isn’t EUROPE IN A RECESSION TOO. DAMN. It seems like Kobe won’t take an offer until he finds out exactly what is going on with the NBA Lockout. Now on the other end Virtus made this offer public to get the buzz going to sway Kobe to go back to his childhood town.

Kobe spent his childhood in Italy while papa Bryant was balling there. Kobe speaks Italian too so you know that he won’t have any trouble macking it to them Italian broads. Just stay away from the ones that have a little to much up there cause you know what they say…A LITTLE HAIR UP THERE, LEADS TO THE SCARE OF YOUR LIFE DOWN THERE…

I know we are in football and 96.9% of Americans can give a shit about the NBA lockout…but apparently the NBA season will start on time…

According to NBC Sports, Derek Fisher (head of the NBA player’s union and STR8 G) sent a text to various NBA players telling them to GET READY FOR THE 2011 NBA season, which WILL start on time…

SI.com reported: “On the heels of Roger Mason’s now-infamous tweet in which the NBPA vice president wrote, “Looking like a season. How u,” but later claimed his account was hacked, one league source claims that union president Derek Fisher text-messaged numerous players last week indicating that some progress had been made and imploring them to be physically prepared just in case the season started on time.“

Believe it or not…the NBA has been locked out for 11 weeks now (not like when the NFL was locked out for 1 day, and fans were already rushing to stores buying extra lube, towels, and ropes).

“We are meeting and we are making a consistent effort to get this deal done and we actually are negotiating,” Fisher said. “To think about where we were on July 1 to now, in terms of just the process itself, not what’s been discussed or what type of deal it will end up being, just the process itself, we’ve put in a lot of time and we are going to try and continue that process and see if we can get a fair deal done as soon as possible.”

LETS GET D-FISH, OWNERS AND BILLY HUNT…WE NEED A NBA SEASON…. CAUSE I JUST CAN’T WAIT TO SEE ANOTHER LBJ CHOKE JOB…

Say what you want about the NBA Lockout, but the lack of professional basketball has produced some grade A temporary solutions. Take, for instance, the California Lingerie Basketball League. Now this is a women’s league I would watch. Take notes WNBA. A little T&A can go a very long way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEqMpaVP1A[/youtube]

We all know and love the Lingerie Football League, so adding another sport to the list, my friends, is awesome. The attire for the Lingerie Basketball League (LBL) may even be better than the LFL. No pads, helmets and all that to block the goods….nope, the LBL is straight up Tank tops, booty shorts, thongs and garter belts. ‘Nuff said. The only thing keeping me from thoroughly enjoying a hallowed out bucket of popcorn and LBL is being 3,000 miles away. These photos will just have to do then. Enjoy getting some hard wood from watching these ladies strut their stuff on the hardwood, BROS.

Now that the NFL Lockout is a thing of the past it’s time to shift our focus to another mess of a league, The NBA (unless my Dolphins trade for a respectable QB, maybe then I’ll stay involved in football). The NBPA’s Executive Director Billy Hunter made a statement today that if he “had to bet on it” there wouldn’t be a NBA season in the upcoming year. Luckily I’m a betting man and I’d be willing to bet against Billy Hunter, but for the moment things aren’t looking too good.

Sources say the players and owners are almost $800 million apparent in their negotiations. The situation is almost being handled worse then Obama and the U.S. Debt problem. Reconciliation between each side is highly in doubt right now and after a meeting between each side on Monday, which has been the first one in nearly a month, David Stern said they were “at the same place” when the lockout first began on July 1st.

There’s one underlying motive between both lockouts and that’s GREED. The problem with the NFL was the greedy owners and players couldn’t figure out how to share the billions of dollars they had control over. The problem with the NBA Lockout is there isn’t enough money for the owners and players to share (at least in their eyes). Reports say 22 of the 30 NBA teams in the league lost money this past year amounting up to roughly $300 million (according to the Owners, of course). Players believe these claims are false and that the estimate of losses incurred isn’t just from the high contracts of players.

Maybe if owners didn’t overpay for players like Rashard Lewis, ($22 million this year, 2nd highest in the NBA!), Gilbert “gun tottin’” Arenas ($19 million), and fatty Elton Brand ($17 million) they wouldn’t be losing money. I’m pretty sure somewhere out there cheeseburgerEddy Curry, is still making millions too (you can give Isiah a reach around later, Eddy). Hell, even Tim Duncanwho’s about a year away from doing Viagra commercials is set to make $21 million. The point is, if some of these owners weren’t incompetent when making deals, then maybe they wouldn’t be losing money every season.

This is the only problem with the NBA Lockout though. The biggest difference between the NBA and other sports is revenue sharing. The MLB and NFL both have a revenue sharing system in place so smaller market teams benefit from larger market when it comes to profits and ticket sales. The NBA doesn’t participate in revenue sharing, which presents another obstacle when trying to reach an agreement. The NBA relies on the large markets (NY, LA, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Dallas) to keep fans interested throughout the season. The NBA has to find a way to generate fan base for smaller market teams (Sacramento, New Orleans, New Jersey) or they’re going to have to contract teams (which David Stern would NEVER let happen). In my opinion David Stern is doing more to protect his reputation with the BIG guys, where if the small guys can’t find a deal that suits them or just get ticked off, we may ultimately have no season.

Another interesting decision to come about soon is the lawsuit the NBA has filed against the NBPA stating that they have “failed to bargain in good faith“. This lawsuit is almost the opposite of the NFL Lockout, where the players sued the owners saying a lockout was unlawful, here the owners are suing the players to prove the lockout IS lawful. The main reason behind this charge is to protect the NBA if the players decide to decertify. This is a very important part of the lawsuit because regardless if the judge finds it legal or illegal for the players to decertify, the NBA has a right to make all current contracts void and unenforceable. With all of these lawsuits between both sides, they seem determined to at least get a hearing out of them which could in fact take up to 60-75 days, which would definitely jeopardize at least the beginning of the season. If it does come down to this, you can expect A LOT of players pack up their game and get their Euro-ball/beach on.

All I know is I’ve spent the last 10 years suffering through the Isiah Era as a Knicks fan, and they finally have a team worth watching. So thank you David Stern and Billy Hunter for sucking at your jobs and putting me through another potential year of misery.

Of course this all is hinging on the fact that the NBA Lockout will last the whole season…which may well be the case. If Deron starts to play in Turkey and the NBA Lockout ends then Williams would have an opt out clause where he could come back. Thing is if Williams gets hurt overseas, his 18 million guaranteed money will be gone, gone, gone.

“We confirm” the contract with Williams, said Ergin Ataman, the coach of the Turkish team Besiktas, in a telephone interview Thursday.

Ataman said that the deal should become official in the next 24 hours and that Besiktas’s president, Seref Yalcin, would join Williams for a news conference in the United States next week [NY Times].

That’s a huge blow to Jersey….I don’t get why you wouldn’t want to stay at home with your Nets? They have a HUGE fan base, Jay-Z is a part owner (that’s pretty cool), their real owner speaks worse English then my cousin Pino who’s straight off the boat from Italy, so you can talk to him and you know he’ll listen, and who the hell knows if the Nets REALLY move to Brooklyn you might be get a chance to go around the hood and tell people to come watch you play.

Turkey sounds pretty good to me right about now…..and I AM talking about the cold-cut…lunch time!

I’ll leave you with a quick tune from non other then the man himself, Adam Sandler.